Twenty One Heartbeats
by Whittaker
Summary: [Indigo Prophecy] The city freezes in an unprecedented cold snap, and David Tamlin finds himself witness to the fulfillment of a centuriesold prophecy. Can he stop the cycle of murder before it's too late?
1. Prologue

_Disclaimer: I don't own Indigo Prophecy, but I wish I did. There should be more games like this out there. Well, except for the ending, which I won't spoil here._

_Rated: T for language, violence_

_Please R&R, comments make me happy. _

Twenty-One Heartbeats

by Whittaker

_I SMELL… something._

Before David opened his eyes, he smelled something. Something… pungent and heady, delicious and rich. Something kind of like bleach, but a little like red wine. It tickled the hairs in his nose, coyly teasing him to remember where he had smelled it before.

It was something unnatural. Not artificial, like antiseptic or air freshener, but something that didn't quite belong. It was winter outside, and the cold always stole away the smells first. This was a full and warm-bodied smell, not the hollowness of snow and ice. David couldn't place it.

But it was too comfortable beneath the covers, in the world that existed only under his blanket. It wasn't worth waking up for. David could somehow tell, without opening his eyes, that the alarm on the nightstand wouldn't ring for at least another five minutes. The numbers would glow with the consistency of a lighthouse: five fifty-five A.M.

At six, the radio would blare. The announcer would state that it was the fifth straight day of below normal temperatures, traffic was already backed up on the Kennedy Expressway, there was another murder on the South Side overnight. _Today's Smart Start quiz question is: from what country did jai alai originate? Caller seven with the correct answer gets a trip for two to…_

David would then hit the snooze button and get ten more minutes of sleep, before rolling over, wiping his eyes and shuffling into the shower. Ten more minutes to sleep, perchance to dream, to snore, and to wonder what that smell was…

_What is it? So familiar…_

Maybe his dreams would tell him. Someone would talk to him in David's dreams, with comforting words and visions. David couldn't make out what the voice was saying, but that didn't matter. He heard sweet tones of undulating regularity, like waves crashing on the sand. Distinctly female, indistinct focus. Clear sounds, muddy message.

It was like floating in the womb. The warmth, the sound, the _smell_. The timelessness. Waiting on pins and needles for the alarm to finally ring, to be violently born into the bright morning and face the day like a newborn.

David opened his eyes.

The clock read 2:17 P.M. Feeble sunlight seeped into the room through the drawn blinds. Shadows clung to the ceiling and walls like cigar smoke. The air was suddenly too thick, the blankets suffocating. Beads of cold sweat formed on David's forehead, because he suddenly realized that he was being watched.

_I know the smell now… it's bl… it's blo…_

David sat up in bed, and saw it all. From head to toe, spatters of blood on his socks and jeans. Stains of red on his shirtsleeves and fingernails. Flakes of it in his hair and on his lips. He could taste it in the back of his throat. He wanted to vomit, fiercely and suddenly. An damp oval stain of maroon surrounded his body, soaking the sheets through to the mattress.

On the windowsill, a raven – massive, swollen beyond any kind of natural proportion – eyed David intently. With a clack of its beak and a tilt of its head, it opened its gigantic black wings and flew away into the cold January sky.


	2. Chapter One

_Disclaimer: I don't own Indigo Prophecy. :)_

Chapter One

"HELLO?"

Three days earlier, David Tamlin was shocked and surprised to find the door to his apartment ajar.

It had been another long and grueling day at the office, three separate accounts closing all in the same week, and all he wanted to do was crash on the couch. His boss was being three times the ass he usually was, breathing down David's neck to get all his invoices and liens in proper order before the weekend. David was putting in at least three extra hours of overtime each night before collapsing at home in a bed of wrinkled dress shirts and silk ties.

As much as he wanted to simply lie down and take a nap in the hallway of his apartment building, David's heart skipped a few beats. His building was located a block away from the end of the Brown Line; not the safest neighborhood in Chicago, but certainly not the most dangerous. Rent was cheap, the neighbors quiet. Crime was not unheard of here, but David couldn't think of why anyone would want to burglarize an apartment barely bigger than a studio.

The brass hinges whined slowly as David pushed the door open. The darkness beyond the door should have been warm and welcoming, beckoning him to at least six hours of sleep before another workday was upon him. Instead, the bitter cold of another Chicago winter followed him from outside. Now the darkness was threatening, sinister.

He heard movement from the inside of the apartment, from the kitchen on his left. There was more than one person inside, perhaps two. David didn't have anything resembling a weapon on him, unless his briefcase counted.

Another bump made David's head turn to the bedroom – somebody was in there, too.

This was turning out bad. He was practically surrounded. There was no way he could stop three intruders from making off with anything, even if they were schoolkids. Better to make a hasty retreat and call the cops.

He flipped open his cell phone and began to dial 911. At that instant, someone called his name. "Hey, Dave!"

As the camera flash went off and blinded him, he realized his mistake.

* * *

"I CAN'T BELIEVE you actually forgot your own birthday. Honestly, David, you're the most senile 29-year-old I know." 

David fake-laughed and downed the rest of his beer. Carl had a way of making the truth seem like an insult. Or was it an insult seem like the truth? "I didn't forget. I was just hoping nobody would remember."

"Yeah, like you're getting _so_ old."

"Says the father of three with the house in the 'burbs and retirement plan."

Everyone laughed. David hoped they would accidentally forget to develop the picture Carl had taken, David's face contorted in a split second mixture of confusion and revelation.

It was true, David had forgotten. He remembered two days prior, but with the possibility of the Banks account falling through at any moment, David found himself needing to leave himself a voice mail reminder to eat three times a day. He didn't think anybody at work even realized what day it was, other than a Friday, the end of a hellish week. Everybody at Barnaby and Collins looked as David did, gaunt and overworked.

Maybe it was time to find another job. David was reaching the age when people figured out mortality is not just a statistic in the newspaper.

_In a year, I'll be thirty._

Past 30, you had no excuses anymore. Your twenties were the last of your party years, the final, ultimate, swear-to-God-I'll-never-get-this-drunk-again time of your life. Once you got to thirty, people started to evaluate you. You should have figured out what you want to do by now. Relatives start asking, why haven't you found a nice girl yet? Hypothetical questions be damned, they patiently wait for your answer. They'd _really_ like to know.

But you don't have an answer, if indeed there was an answer. Only shrugs follow, then the limp response, "Oh, the right girl just hasn't come along yet." Then Aunt Doris suddenly seizes the right to get all Dr. Phil on you.

"So how does it feel to be twenty-nine?" Carl smiled with a glaze in his eyes that signaled half a beer too many.

"Like being twenty-eight. Just as bone tired as yesterday."

"Aren't you glad we all came over, then?" His fifteen or so friends in the room smiled with an unforced camaraderie, but David wasn't feeling it. He wanted to sleep.

"Yeah, loads. I'm glad this only comes once a year."

"Aww, look at that, David _is_ feeling old. Time to break out the diapers and applesauce."

"Hey, not quite yet. I've still got some time left before I need dentures like you."

David wished everyone would just pack up and leave. His fake smile was running out of batteries. Subconsciously, he probably forgot his birthday on purpose. It was all downhill from twenty-one, everyone knew that. What's there to look forward to? Wrinkles, arthritis, cholesterol, high blood pressure. David sighed and picked up some empty bottles.

"It's getting late." He hoped people would get the hint.

"Yeah, looks like it is. But we haven't opened your presents yet." Carl grinned sloppily, and most of the other men in the room woke from their alcoholic stupors.

"Yeah, man, you wouldn't want to have a birthday without presents, right?" Another of Carl's friends, someone David barely knew, spoke with a thinly veiled suggestion of what was to come.

The feeling David had when he realized he was outnumbered in his apartment suddenly returned. A headache formed behind his eyes; this night was far from over.

"Hey, Candy!"

A woman walked into the room. The guys erupted in laughter and catcalls.

She was barely dressed, save for some strategic red ribbons wrapped around her waist and chest. Tall black boots climbed her calves. Her red hair hung straight down from her head like a copper curtain, and her lips pressed together in a permanent pucker. A large shiny bow hung in between her breasts.

"Howdy, birthday boy." Candy's voice was like rust and gravel, but no one seemed to hear it but David.

Carl and his friends laughed and whooped. David wished he were still at work.

"What are you waiting for? Open your present."

Candy shoved her breasts against David, the bow crushed like a fly caught in a Venus fly-trap. Her breath smelled like bubble gum, but David could see the broken blood vessels in the whites of her eyes and the heavy concealer on her forehead. When she smiled, crow's feet materialized at the corners of her eyes. This woman was far beyond thirty.

Carl stuck his face close to theirs. His breath was rancid. "Come on, Davey, do us all a favor and open your present. We're all dying to see it."

The headache that had suddenly materialized in David's head began throbbing. Perhaps one didn't have to turn thirty to realize what it was all about. Or what it _wasn't_ about. In the end, David thought, it wasn't about money or cars or parties. Or houses. Or children or retirement plans.

It was about sleep.

"I'm going to bed."

Candy raised her finely plucked eyebrows. "We haven't even gotten started, baby."

David took her by the shoulders and pushed her away. "No, I mean, I'm going to sleep."

"What?"

"Good night, everyone. I think you can all show yourselves the way out." The shouting and catcalls faded away lamely. Carl blinked stupidly. The silence that has invaded the room was like a gunshot from somewhere nearby, people suddenly looking to somebody else to decide what to do.

David threw away his beer bottle in the trash and shuffled away to his bedroom. He closed the door behind him with resolution.

Candy yelled after him, "Who the fuck do you think _you_ are?"

* * *

CARL DIDN'T CALL the next day. Or the day after that. 

David was glad. He suddenly had other things to worry about.

The sheets were soaking in a large bucket in the corner, next to a half empty bottle of bleach. His clothes were submerged in a bloody pool of water in the sink. If the stains didn't wash out, he would take them out to a deserted lot somewhere and burn them.

If they washed out, maybe he'd burn them anyway.

Just getting out of bed that morning was an ordeal. After his horror subsided, David got out of bed with a zombie-like slowness. Everything stuck together. The blankets stuck to the bed sheet. His clothes to the blankets. His fingers to each other.

David tiptoed delicately to the bathroom. The blood had congealed enough to not drip onto the floor, but he felt abhorrent and contaminated. He refrained from touching anything, except to shut the window he was sure he had closed the night before.

The steam from the shower didn't do much to wash away the feeling of contamination. David scrubbed and scrubbed until his skin was fresh and pink. He tried three different soaps to erase the stench. But it wouldn't come out, like the dirt beneath a fingernail or the corn stuck in between your teeth.

He was in trouble, without a doubt. Who could he turn to? At this point, Carl was a last resort.

David assumed Carl had spent a lot of money on the stripper and was resentful of his behavior. At this point, David didn't care all that much. They had been growing apart these last few years, and this was probably the last nail in the coffin of their friendship. They didn't know each other as well as they used to.

He thought Carl would have changed once he got married and had children. Matured. But that simply wasn't the case. Whenever Miranda wasn't around, Carl was the same old fraternity boy he was in college. Too much drink, too much partying, barely enough responsibility.

It probably didn't help that David and Miranda barely got along. They were civil to each other, but they had nothing in common except Carl. She was stiff and proper, while Carl was scarcely an adult. David was amazed their marriage lasted so long. He wondered what Carl saw in her.

After that night, he wondered more about what Miranda saw in Carl.

The phone rang on Monday.

"Hey, man." Carl's voice was non-committal.

"Carl. I'm sorry about the other day."

"Whatever."

"I was really tired that night and I just really wanted to get some rest. I hope you understand."

"Doesn't matter. Seriously." Somehow, David didn't believe that. "Look, the reason I called was because I didn't want you to be shocked if you read the newspaper yet."

"Why, what happened?"

"It's on the front page. Seems our Candy had a run-in with some freaks last night. Her body was all cut up and shit. They found her in the bathroom of some diner on Broadway."

"Oh my God. Is she…?"

"Yeah, man, she's dead."


	3. Chapter Two

_Disclaimer: I don't own Indigo Prophecy. :)_

Chapter Two

TURNS OUT CANDY'S name wasn't Candy after all.

She was Mary Louise Atherton, thirty-seven, divorced twice with an eight-year-old named Amy. She lived with her mother out in Cicero. The newsanchor said she worked at the Super Target on Halsted.

The picture they showed on the television had been taken at least ten years earlier; it only faintly resembled the woman who was in David's apartment on Thursday night. Her lips hadn't been Botox-ed, her hair was a short, mousy brown, the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes weren't apparent yet.

Her smile was genuine, innocent.

Ms. Atherton was found face up in a pool of her own blood in the women's bathroom of the Melrose Diner at 1:45 AM by a group of clubgoers. She had been stabbed multiple times in the chest around the area of the heart, although an autopsy had yet to declare an official cause of death. Officers on the scene estimate half an hour had passed from the time of her murder to the discovery of her body. No murder weapon was found, no suspects in custody. Witnesses are being interviewed, and a composite sketch should be available within the next few days.

Atherton's mother, a Mrs. Lynn Woods, described Mary Louise as a "sweet, caring, loving daughter, who was never involved with any kind of gangs or drugs."

David wondered how well Mrs. Woods really knew her daughter.

"Sir?"

"Huh?" A cheerful young barista broke David out of his reverie. "Oh, sorry, I'll have a tall vanilla latte to go, please."

"No problem. One tall vanilla latte to go." Her smile was infectious. As David turned away, he could feel her smile still glued to his back. With his gray eyes and blond hair, he knew from childhood that his face made heads turn, but he pointedly ignored the stares. He wanted people to remember what he _did_, not what he looked like.

_Composite sketches will be available within the next few days._

David wondered if he'd be staring at his own face from the front page of the newspaper by the end of the week.

Where had he been last night? Why couldn't he remember? What if he _had_ murdered that poor woman? But try as he might, David couldn't remember anything out of the ordinary happening. He distinctly remembered going to bed at around 9:30, after watching some old Hitchcock movie... the one with the guy in the wheelchair watching everybody from his window. He remembered shutting the window in his bedroom. He couldn't remember ever being at the Melrose Diner on Broadway, whether it was last night or any other night.

The cheerful barista handed him his coffee and wished him a good day. David hated to venture back out into the cold, but he couldn't sit still. He found himself compulsively looking around the room, expecting to see someone who watched him back. He huddled his shoulders together and stepped outside.

And into a polar bear.

David nearly spilled his coffee. "Excuse me!"

In front of him was something that vaguely resembled a human, except it was covered from head to toe in frothy white. Fur-lined boots, white jeans, shiny, silvery coat. The form pulled back its feathered hood to reveal a young woman with caramel eyes and an exuberant smile.

"Oops! Sorry about that! Didn't mean to bump into you!"

David smiled for the first time that day. "No, it's okay. I didn't spill anything."

"Awww... too bad."

"...Excuse me?"

The woman smiled. "That coffee smells so good I would've licked it off the floor."

David looked around, wondering if anybody else heard that. "Uh, okay..."

"It's not like I can't afford any coffee of my own, really. I'm not poor or anything. It's just that I have this thing with caffeine, my doctor says I should lay off of it as much as possible. It does weird things to my system."

"I can see why," David laughed.

"I can make do with tea, you know, those exotic Japanese ones... they don't have as much caffeine in them, so I don't go bouncing off the walls like I usually do." She shook off the snow from her shoulders and did a full-body shiver. "Either that, or chocolate drinks are good, too. Chocolate would taste really good on a day like today, you think?"

"I guess so." David wondered why this hyperactive woman was still speaking to him. Not that he minded so much.

"Um... so are you going to stand in the doorway all day, or what?" The woman smirked.

"Oh! I didn't mean to." David twisted around so he could hold the door open. "I couldn't help but notice..."

"That's okay. I kind of have that effect on people," she said as she slid into the warm coffee shop. "My therapist tells me that sometimes after I've been talking a while, she doesn't know whether she's coming or going."

"Tell your therapist she's a patient woman."

"Oh, she is. My psychic counselor tells me she's gonna stick with me for a really long time, or at least until they finally decide if Pluto's is going to be a planet or not."

"They're deciding on whether Pluto is a planet? I thought that was decided already."

"Nope, my masseuse says that if Pluto is a planet, then some asteroids should be planets, too. I wonder what they'll do with that saying... 'My very earnest mother just served us nine pizzas.'"

"My very... what?"

"You've never heard that saying? My tutor taught it to me, when I was nine. It helps you remember the names of the planets: Mars, Venus, Earth, Mercury, Jupiter..."

"Wait, wait... Mercury is the first planet, then Mars comes later..."

The woman looked confused. "Are you sure?" She started to count on her fingers.

"Pretty sure, yeah."

"Huh, you must be right. I'm gonna have to correct my florist the next time I see him."

David felt dizzy.

"I'm Janet, in case you were wondering." Janet stuck out her hand, complete with fuzzy white glove.

"David... Tamlin." They shook hands.

"Nice to meet you, David. Hope to see you again. Now, if it's okay with you, I'm gonna get me a nice Frappucino." Janet turned away and walked to the register.

"A Frappucino... on a day like today?" But David saw she was already talking up a storm with the barista. The barista suddenly looked like a deer caught in headlights. He shook his head – convinced he was just run over by a truck wearing knit woolen mittens – and left.


End file.
